Fine review on a very exiting card. Seems like I may finally move to Vista and Dx10 gaming without spending too much on upgrades.

My only worry with this card is the poor minimum FPS in Crysis in DX10 1680 and above with aa. The GTX280 kills it there.

Is this likely a driver issue? or is it related to not having enough GPU memory? It blasts the other games. I'm worried, though, that some of the better future games are going to be very intensive like Crysis. Alternatively it could the bad coding in crysis. Just wondering.

Does its justify to buy a 4870 for someone play at 1280*1024 on a 19'' LCD with a 2.8Ghz amd opteron? or its just money waste and he/she should look for a 4850 instead?

Well the question is, do you ever plan on going to a 22-24" widescreen LCD in the next 3-9 months or so ?? If so then I'd say 4870 should be what you should be looking to do. If your going to just do everything @ 1280x1024 then the 4850 will be more suited to ya, BUT even still 4870 WILL give ya great framerates & ability to play games maxed out @ 1280x1024 for all the future more HD based titles to come out.

Well the question is, do you ever plan on going to a 22-24" widescreen LCD in the next 3-9 months or so ?? If so then I'd say 4870 should be what you should be looking to do. If your going to just do everything @ 1280x1024 then the 4850 will be more suited to ya, BUT even still 3870 WILL give ya great framerates & ability to play games maxed out @ 1280x1024 for all the future more HD based titles to come out.

thnak you, thats almost enought to makes me buy watercooling instead of a new video card and get a 3870 in 1 month for 90$

Is this likely a driver issue? or is it related to not having enough GPU memory? It blasts the other games. I'm worried, though, that some of the better future games are going to be very intensive like Crysis. Alternatively it could the bad coding in crysis. Just wondering.

Yes, definately a driver issue. The same goes for some areas in CoD 4 as well where both R770 cards slow down quite a bit as evidenced by their min framerates at high res.

AMD might be trying for a hard launch of july 8th, but just like the 4850's stores have them early and are selling them. I've seen them in best buy, and online at canada computers. Myself i bought 2 from providentpc to crossfire with and they still had some left.

Good review, all I can say is Go AMD/ATI and no I am not a fanboy in fact all of my video cards have been Nvidia. I just posted not too long ago about power requierments for the 9600GT, but I am glad I did not get it yet because the HD4850 looks like the way to go since I game on my 720p TV it should be no problem and the Sapphire one has Integrated HD audio controller, don't know if they all do. It's good to see this kind of competition for Nvidia.

Dang. Well before I say anything. Thank you SKY/HWC! Thank you guys so much. Very nice review and definitely the best review so far on the 4870 on the internet. I would just love to see some 2 4870 CF benchies. Just dying to click the purchase button but want to wait and see. Wow I am going to move from a 8800 GTS 320 mb card to 2 4870's. Also I am wondering how much more of a frame rate increase will I get for a 1 gig version?

Anyways a few questions.

1. How much of an improvement do you think CF will get?
2. How much benefit will waiting for the 1gb version to come out?
3. Do you know anything on any manufacturer having a non reference heatsink coming out in the 4870 flavore or a company that allows after market heatsinks?
4. Guestimate at the performance of the 4870 X2 and guestimate the price. PLZ :)
5. Will my current PSU handle 2 4870 plus my overclock of my Quad?
6. SKY you deserve to get payed for the best reviews I can find.

__________________
Sponsor a child! Fight poverty.

Qoute by Perineum
"ID10T. I just BETCHA he's got 9 toolbars on his web browser right now."